. >>> casper, deep blue, bird, jordan, mcenroe, coners, boehner, obama. it is friday, december 7th, this is "now." >> joining me today, chief economic correspondent for politico ben white, editor at large for salon.com, joe walsh, queen bee and editing manager of the grio.com, and buzz fooeds.com ben smith. the labor department delivered a december surprise, which might just alter the debate over the fiscal cliff. despite predictions of stalled job creation in november in superstorm sandy and looming fiscal cliff, the nation added 146,000 jobs last month, and unemployment ticked down to 7.7%. while november's figures are higher than expected, september and october were revised down 16 and 33,000 jobs respectively. chief economists for moody's analytics mark zandi cautions november may see a downward revision but the numbers are a good sign. >> bottom line, feels like the job market is holding firm in the face of sandy and fiscal cliff concerns, so that's good news. >> surprising exactly no one, the white house and republicans had different spin on the num